1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a heat pipe for cooling an electronic component, and more particularly to a method for manufacturing the heat pipe, wherein outer surface of the heat pipe has dents defined therein.
2. Description of Related Art
Electronic components, such as central processing units (CPUs) comprise numerous circuits operating at high speed and generating substantial heat. Under most circumstances, it is necessary to cool the CPUs in order to maintain safe operating conditions and assure that the CPUs function properly and reliably. In the past, various approaches have been used to cool electronic components. Typically, a finned metal heat sink is attached to an outer surface of the CPU to remove the heat therefrom. The heat absorbed by the heat sink is then dissipated to ambient air. The related finned metal heat sink is made of highly heat-conductive metal, such as copper or aluminum, and generally comprises a base for contacting the CPU to absorb the heat therefrom and a plurality of fins formed on the base for dissipating the heat. However, as the operating speed of electronic components has increased markedly in recent years, such a related heat sink, which transfers the heat only by metal conduction, is not competent for dissipating so much heat any more. The heat of the bottom of the metal heat sink can not be transferred to the whole heat dissipation device quickly, and especially can not be transferred to the fins far away from the bottom of the metal heat sink.
Heat pipes, which operate by phase change of working liquid sealed in a hollow pipe, have been widely used due to their excellent heat transfer properties. Accordingly, heat sinks equipped with heat pipes are devised in various manners and widely used. In this related art, each heat pipe has an evaporation section soldered in a base of the heat sink and a condensation section soldered into fins of the heat sink. However, during the soldering process of the heat pipe and the base of the heat sink, the outer surface of the heat pipe is too smooth to enable the molten solder to adhere thereon, whereby the molten solder can flow away from the heat pipe; thus, a thermal connection between the heat pipe and the base is adversely affected and a heat dissipation capability of the heat sink is accordingly reduced.
A solution for preventing molten solder from flowing away from a heat pipe during the soldering process for soldering the heat pipe to a heat sink is needed.